A Mandate for Greatness: The Search for Identity

This one has been a long time coming. This is a topic I’ve been sitting, thinking, and praying about for a few months now as I’ve been watching things unfold. I typically like to hold my tongue until I have something to say that I feel is valuable, and I feel like I’ve finally come into a place where I have something valuable to say on some of the issues that have been swirling around in the ethos lately, so hopefully it blesses and encourages you.

So we all know that there are a ton of things happening in our society today. I’m just going to objectively list some of them; the Black Lives Matter organization is protesting, Antifa is rioting, media outlets are reporting on all of it (and half of the population thinks they’re lying for various reasons, ranging from conspiracy to capitalism). Meanwhile there’s movements sprouting up against pedophilia, Instagram accounts are getting deleted (censorship or naw?), we have an election coming up (and both sides claim that the fate of our democracy depends on it’s outcome, which I suppose is trivially true if you’re being picky about language but does seem a little dramatic, although I’m sure there are those who would verbally assassinate me for saying that), and there’s a global pandemic that has almost literally caused agoraphobia in half of the population while the other half is like, “Nah, that’s not real.” Very wild times.

One thing that I believe this time is highlighting is the level of tribalism in our society. When I say tribalism, I define it as the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s own tribe or social group. And I feel the need to say, if you find your own behavior in what I’m about to describe, I am not saying that your ideas and perspective are meaningless, or that sharing what you are passionate about is wrong. We’ll get there, hang on for this one. Anyway, I believe that we are using tribalism to derive a sense of identity and purpose, and that tribalism, while successful at this task, has created an environment that is not at all conducive to overall societal health, or the mental and physical health of the individuals that make up the society.

Let’s take a particular example that is near and dear to my heart; the racial climate in America. When I say that I am a black man in America whose profile picture on Instagram is still black from Blackout Tuesday, where does your mind go? Who do you think I’m associated with? Who do you think I will vote for in the 2020 election? Who are my friends? What type of political posts do you think I like when I’m scrolling through my Instagram page? Or let’s say I’m a 45 year old white guy from Texas, and I write “ALL LIVES MATTER” in all caps and post that on Facebook. Who do you think I’m voting for? What do you think I think about black people? What do you think I think about George Floyd? Why do you think I think that way? What news channel do you think I watch? What do you think I think in my head when I see a black man walking down the street?

The fact that you can instantly draw a million conclusions about at least one of the people in the example above is evidence of the tribalism we experience in our society. Further evidence is the emotional baggage that probably came with the snap judgment. You may have felt anger. Contempt. Disgust. Distrust. Hatred. But why? And the stronger your feelings, the more obvious the response to that question probably is. You might say something like, “That person hates me! They don’t care about me at all!” or “That person hates my country and the things I’ve worked hard for!” or maybe just simply “That’s a horrible person. Like ew.” (if you’re saying that last one, please stop saying that lol, people have a little more depth to them than just “good” and “horrible”). But all I’ve told you about that person is that they made their profile picture on Instagram black, or that they wrote a phrase (although it is certainly a very politically loaded phrase) on their Facebook page. How do we go from that to assumptions about the person’s feelings towards you or the country you live in?

This is how. We live in a society filled with tribes (I will refer to them from here on as social groups, because I think that terminology is a little more fitting). These social groups form based on some sort of shared experience. They have social markers which indicate to others that you are a member of that social group (e.g. making your profile picture black, or saying things like “Black lives matter” or “All lives matter”). They have language that members of the social group use, and thus the language becomes associated with them (e.g. intersectionality, implicit bias, Leftist, socialist, communist, etc.). And mind you, none of this is new. Subcultures always function this way. Look at the scene, where all the kids where black skinny jeans and listen to screamo and share other commonalities. Or hip hop; if I walk down the street wearing a huge gold chain, you’re going to quickly recognize what subculture I’m a part of. But I don’t think we typically think of our political climate in this way, when it is exactly the same, except for one crucial difference. The hip hop guy and the scene kid are part of two different subcultures that don’t necessarily mix, but they’re not in a position where the origins of both cultures places them in increasingly violent direct opposition to one another. That is the position of our current political climate. If we want to get super stereotypical with the first example I gave, within my subculture it is an ideology that black people are wonderful and shouldn’t be brutally killed. It is also an ideology that anyone who says “All Lives Matter” fundamentally opposes this idea and thus believes that black people aren’t wonderful and should be brutally killed. So now I’m angry. (And as an aside, I’m not interested in evaluating the validity of that belief here, I’m only asserting what the ideology is.)

And notice the implicit bias here. These social markers have become so loaded that the use of any of them, whether conscious or unconscious, instantly causes you to be viewed as all of the ideology associated with whatever tribe you are a part of. You are no longer an individual with a vast collection of ideas derived from your own thoughts, education, and experiences. You are the “Black Lives Matter heathen protester” or the “straight white male” that was presented to the other side, and you are treated as such. Part of this is our tendency to generalize, simply because it makes things easier for us. And part of this is driven by the fact that, like all subcultures, you have your diehards and your people on the fringe, and the diehards are always the loudest, so the social markers are always associated with the most extreme forms of the social group. None of this is helpful for actual dialogue, because approaching a person as an ideology closes your ears to what they might say (because you think you already know everything that they believe and feel). When both sides approach debates like this, the results are rhetoric wars that never actually get at the root of the problem, as people become more and more inflamed (or, dare I say it, triggered) at the sight of more and more social markers, defending the tribe with all of the vigor they can muster!

How did we get here? I would argue that it’s mostly an identity problem. As I said at the beginning, we use these social groups to derive a sense of identity and belonging. Humans are existential creatures; we long to find meaning in the things that we’re doing. Ultimately, we’re yearning for the sense of purpose that comes from connection with God, but when you don’t have that connection, you begin to search for identity in other things that are far shakier. So we find identity in all sorts of other subcultures; I can go beyond really liking hip hop to identifying with the culture, and defining myself based on what I see in the culture. The same thing is taking place (perhaps even more dramatically) in the political sphere, where putting yourself on the left or the right seems to define almost everything about you, from your ethical principles to the sort of media you enjoy and the news station you watch. And it makes sense that this would be the case; politics is (hopefully) far more important than the type of music you really like (even though the political dichotomy is so strong at this point that your music choice and your political views may not be entirely disconnected).

I have lots of thoughts about why we are more susceptible to this now than we have been in the past. Part of it is wealth; we think about survival a lot less than we used to, and thus have a lot more time to be existential and wrestle with meaning. And since we’ve secularized our society, that meaning is hard to come by and has to be derived from these subcultures. For a lot of people, that doesn’t quite do it (hence the rise in depression and anxiety in western cultures). But it’s all a lot of people have, so they cling to it with everything that they’ve got. I also believe the advent of the Internet has played a role, as there are many ways in which it may have encouraged us to think in terms of tribes, with all of the subcultures that have been created now that anyone who is into anything can go online and connect with the five other people in the world who are into exactly the same thing (e.g. the whole My Little Pony craze lol).

I think the the thing that I am most opposed to in this whole thing is that I’m seeing a “Kingdom” tribe emerging at the moment. These are people who know the Lord, but are getting sucked into the tribal warfare that they see happening around them. And so they begin using the same tactics and fighting shadows without ever addressing the real issues, only adding to the noise and confusion already in the air. To those people, I say that you are not like the world, and the weapons that you were given are not carnal, but they are mighty, for the tearing down of strongholds. In Jeremiah 23:29, the Lord says, “Is not My word like a fire… and like a hammer that breaks the rock to pieces?” You were not put on this earth to fight like someone who is powerless. You were put here to tear down strongholds. Strongholds come down when you sit in the council of God and use the weapons He gives you, not the weapons of the world, because you aren’t fighting against people, you’re fighting against what is fighting against people. Don’t see the problem and miss the root, that’s not who you are and is not why you were placed here.

For anyone else reading this, be conscious of what you’re involved in, and be aware of the fact that the ideology of your social group is not always correct. Don’t tout the party line just because that’s the crew you’re a part of and you like that crew. Don’t mindlessly share things on social media just because everyone else is doing it, and you want to look like you’re a part of the same thing they’re a part of. Think. Research. Treat people like they’re people, and not like they’re the ideologies that are associated with their social marker. The guy who’s IG profile pic is black might not hate America, so don’t approach him like he does. The guy who wrote “all lives matter” in all caps may not hate you, so don’t expect hatred from him. And if you receive it, love him anyway, because change requires someone to love, and if we always have to be the ones to love, we’ll lay down our lives and love so that our children won’t see the hatred we did. Don’t just agree with all of the people on your side who sound smart; not everyone who sounds smart is, and lots of things sound like they make sense until you hear the other side (then you realize that everybody’s wrong lol). None of us have all of this figured out. Sometimes listening is useful just so that other people feel heard, even when they’re wrong. A person who feels heard is more inclined to listen when it’s your turn to speak. Contrary to all of the rhetoric going out there, we’re all in this together, and the ship will only certainly sink when we continue to hold to this “us vs. them” mentality. Throw that away, the “them” to focus on is the demonic, not the left or the right. Embrace humility and put your pride behind you. Be slow to speak and quick to listen.

And for all of you Christians. Go out of your way to love any of the people who you’ve been coming against. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. The Lord will show you how to deal with the spiritual side of it. Until then, look for how you can love those people. That’s why you’re here. That’s your job. It’s been too long that we haven’t properly done what the Lord has given for us to do on the earth. No more. We aren’t just going to respond the way everyone else responds, there is no testimony to the legitimacy of Jesus in that. Walk like Christ. Everything we do, we do in the name of Jesus.

Love ya’ll,

Kaleb